After months of planning, many thousands of pounds being spent, a few mental breakdowns and a two hour incident involving 40 Aikido mats, Japan Day finally happened on May 10th at Sheffield University. As I was pretty involved in the day I didn’t take photos, but luckily we had photographer Adam Harley on hand to take some photos. Enjoy!

The event was held in the Sheffield University Octagon, and due to it’s size we were able to have a load of stalls set up around the edge of the auditorium. People were able to try on Kimonos, try tea ceremony, have a go at Japanese calligraphy, check out some Anime and so on. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any photos, but thanks a lot to everyone who helped on those stalls, you guys kept the spirit of the day going even when we stage-workers were falling off the stage and so on!

The photos for the day are at the bottom of this post!

The day’s performances started with the Sheffield University Aikido team doing a performance to show off some of their skills. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to catch most of the performance as I was running around backstage trying to locate missing dancers, props and so on. But from what I saw it looked both cool and dangerous, a mixture I am a big fan of, so I enjoyed what I saw

After that came one of my performances – Soran Bushi. Long time readers / those who attended Japan Day2008 will know that this was not my first time performing Soran. But due tothe nature of university we had lost all but 3 of our previous dancers, so it fell to myself, other Mike and Mo to teach 12 budding dancers to become graceful Soran masters. Personally I feel we did a great job – the performance was tight and the crowd loved it. Due to my height I was situated at the back of the dance so the photos don’t have me in them, but then you may see that as a good thing! There were videos taken but they haven’t been processed yet, once they’re available I’ll post them

Aside from Soran there was plenty of singing and dancing to enjoy. Students Jamie and Koyuki sang some Japanese songs, both traditional Enka and more modern songs (like the theme to Ponyo!) and some students did some modern dance to a song by j-hip hop group Teriyaki Boyz.

After which came the scariest event of the day! The Japan Day 2009 Quiz, hosted by yours truly! I’m waiting on the video so I can post one of the rounds on Youtube for you guys to enjoy, but the idea was to get across some stuff about Japanese culture and so on in a fun way. I think we succeeded – we got good feedback, and I got my flatmate to dress as a woman. Success!

This all lead up to the big one : a taiko drumming performance by Joji Hirota. I can’t really express how awesome it was so you will have to wait for the video, but I will say after seeing Koenji’s Awaodori last year I was sure I wanted to join an Awaodori group. Now I want to join a Taiko one! It was a mind blowing performance from musicians who clearly love what they’re doing, and I would urge anyone to try to witness a Taiko performance.

So that’s Japan Day. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved; the performers, the organisers, especially Katrina and Laura, those who worked tirelessly all day on the various stalls, to the Octagon and the university for allowing us to hold the event, and of course to everyone who came!

Photo Gallery (Thanks Photographers!)

So start counting down the days until Japan Day 2010, I guess… Oh, and stay tuned for videos. Just as soon as I can get hold of them.

Possibly Related Content:

1. Sheffield Japan Day 2009
2. Soran Bushi @ Sheffield Japan Day 2009
3. Sheffield Japan Day 2009 – Promo Photoshoot
4. JSoc’s Soran Bushi @ Japan Day / International Culture Evening
5. 2009 In Review